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Topic: Alqueva Dark Sky Reserve (Read 1141 times)

Hi gang. I'm currently in Setubal, Portugal. I notice the Alqueva dark sky reserve is only an hours drive away and wondered if anyone had a top tip for where to set up for a nights observing. Obrigado amigos!!

Oh I must say before I head out to the beach (yeah - I Know, not cool) that while in Lisbon I was gifted some great solar system observations from our wee apartment in Lisbon. Everthing Is so much higher up in the sky here due to being 20 odd degrees further South. Saturn was absolutely stunning through the new (to me) wee 80mm Equinox. Using a 7mm SW Nirvana (thanks Lorne) coupled with a x2 barlow there was no wobble and it was miles up out of the murk. Clearly spherical and sitting in between the rings it had a bit of a 3d quality to it. Mars was up next and it is really the first time I've had a decent look at it. Although very small the height out of the murk helped to easily identify the planet as a disc. The moon was also great and I had a bash at trying to catch the occultation of Neptune last night, well the 2nd part when the sky was dark anyway. Clouds scuppered me which was incredible as there was only 1 cloud in the sky at the time. That felt a wee bit more like what I'm used to. Ha ha